


Seasoned Advice

by thatonewriterchick



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Days Off, Destiny, Ghosts, Hint that smut happened though, M/M, No Smut, Trials of Osiris, Where do the ghosts go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 17:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18103031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatonewriterchick/pseuds/thatonewriterchick
Summary: A glimpse of what Ghosts are up to when their Guardians don’t need them.





	Seasoned Advice

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve wondered where Ghosts go when Guardians don’t need them for a while now; I can’t imagine they’d stick so closely together all the time, which got me wondering and...well, here's a guess. XD

He had almost finished the hack when the question came.

“What are you _doing_?”

Dee started, whirling to inspect the other Ghost who narrowed her eye on him.

He shrank away from the key pad, hoping he didn’t look as suspicious as he felt. The waiting Ghost had a bright yellow shell, with an accent of black triangles pointing away from her blue gaze. A moment more of inspecting and he realized she wasn’t angry, nor she didn’t bear the Vanguard’s colors. This wasn’t a guard who would report him.

“My Guardian is inside and made a…a noise,” he explained. “I just have to-“ He stopped as the other Ghost began to laugh. Before he could say more, she spoke again.

“ _My_ Guardian is in there too,” she said with more than a little amusement. “And I can assure you, your Guardian is just fine. Probably better than fine, actually.”

“But his vitals are-“ Dee huffed as the other snorted and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘rookie.’ “Excuse me?”

“Trust me,” she insisted, tilting a spine toward the locked door. “If you break in there, you’ll only make a fool of yourself.” She added, “I’m El. And you are…?”

Dee narrowed his gaze on her, suspicious. “How do you know?”

“Because a long, _long_ time ago, no one stopped me,” she admitted. “And trust me…I still haven’t lived it down.”

They were silent a moment, but there were definitely noises on the other side of the door. Sounds that Dee could no longer tell if they were pain or…something else. Doubt made him hesitate; he had waited a long time to find his partner and they had already had started off on the wrong foot with his Guardian believing him to be a demon or some other malevolence.

He sighed. “My name’s Dee,” he confessed. “Short for…Daemon.”

El snorted again. “For what your Guardian-“

“Thought I was, yes.” He sighed. “Don’t laugh!”

“No one’s laughing,” El told him as she turned away. “Come with me.”

“I should probably-“

“They’re going to be in there for a _very_ long time,” El assured him. “I promise.”

He followed her through the corridors with great reluctance, but had to admit that the distance between himself and the door wasn’t the worst decision he had made that day.

“Where are we going?” He inquired as he followed her through the hall. She vanished in a wisp of Light and he followed suit just before they left the dormitories and emerged into the Hall of Guardians’ open space.

“The Nook,” El told him.

While he was trying to muster up the desire to still be irritated with her for coming between himself and his Guardian, he couldn’t bite back the excitement at the announcement. The Nook was a small place that paired up Ghosts visited to share tips and information. In the few months of reviving his Guardian, Dee had only managed to bring him to the Tower after numerous revivals.

The entry turned out to be a vent without a cover, far above the milling Guardians below. While Dee had known about its existence – it was no secret among Ghosts, of course – he had never gone there. El led the way through the metal tunnels, casting a cone of light in front of them while Dee mentally mapped out where they were. On the higher floors, somewhere between the Vanguard’s living quarters and the mentoring Guardians just a few floors below.

The tunnel opened up into a small storage room, stacked with unlabeled boxes. A service maintenance frame was tucked into a corner wearing a makeshift necklace that announced its inability to function. Dee looked around in surprise. The occupants moving about inside kept the light sensors triggered and thus well-lit, but the space was so much smaller and…blander than he had imagined. The Ghosts already in the room moved about as they spoke to one another and they hadn’t noticed the new arrivals.

One was a pastel pink shell with shimmering bits of matching Light wafting from her frame. The second was a navy shade with accent spines pointing away from the yellow stripe bisecting his shell down the front. Dee took a few short moments to look around, curious as to what the unmarked boxes stacked in the corner could be, as they bore no marks of the vendors he was familiar with.

“El, you’re bringing sugar lumps in now?”

Dee stiffened in indignation at the question from the male Ghost with the navy shell. “I _have_ a Guardian, thank you,” he snapped. Sugar lump being reference to the standard white shell Ghosts kept until they found their Guardian who replaced it with something more…colorful.

“Freshly resurrected, perhaps,” the male murmured, unimpressed. “What, like a few days?”

“Be nice, Scout,” the female Ghost with the pink shell chided. “El, who’s your friend?”

“Dee, meet Iris.” El moved further into the room. “She’s the nice one. The one with no manners is Scout.”

Rather than be insulted, Scout snorted.

“He just needed some time away from his Guardian,” El explained. “You know how they get.”

Dee was grateful that she hadn’t mentioned their conversation outside of the room. The more he considered it, the more he worried she had been right.

“Yeah…” Iris said on a sigh of mild exasperation. “In bars.”

“Closets,” Scout supplied. “Before battle.”

“After battle.” Iris rolled her frame, her single eye shifting toward the ceiling.

“During battle,” El said with a shake of disapproval. When the other three Ghosts turned to stare at her in surprise, she added, incredulously, “What?”

“That is _not_ normal,” Scout told her. “Then again, your Guardian is a…” He looked to Iris for help.

“What the others call a slut,” she filled in.

“Hey!” El said, shooting forward to bump the pink Ghost’s side fin. “He just has a _lot_ of energy.”

“His record says he got banned from Trials for a season for carrying participants in exchange for sexual favors.” Scout blinked as he withdrew from the database.

“Those files are classified, archived and dismissed; you shouldn’t be hacking into them,” El reminded him.

Dee wondered if Scout would teach him a few tricks to be able to hack that quickly.

“I wonder what he did to get them classified,” Iris mused, slyly.

“If you want access to those level one Vanguard files I downloaded, you won’t bother guessing,” El mused, now smug.

“By the Traveler’s Light, did you see that Crucible match last night?” Iris chirped, voice a bit shrill.

“Wait, what level one files?”

“No way, Scout,” El insisted, fixing her gaze on him. “You want good stuff, you need to give good stuff. And I don’t mean those stupid relic iron deposit maps – no one cares, but you and your Guardian!”

“And I’m the mean one,” Scout deadpanned, looking to Dee.

“Could you teach me to hack like you did?” He blurted.

“Maybe. If you make it worth my while.” The navy Ghost looked him up and down. “You’ve got other things to worry about right now.”

“Like…?”

“Like getting a better shell,” Scout suggested.

“He’s very vain,” Iris explained. “Which is surprising with that…” She nodded at him. “Average thing he calls a shell.”

“Not all of our Guardians enjoy the sociopathic slaying of one another just for better gear,” Scout shot back. “And really, how is killing one another going to make Guardians better fighters against species other than themselves?”

“Here we go,” El said on a sigh as Iris and Scout began to squabble.

“El,” came an unfamiliar male’s breathless voice, filling the small room and ending the rest of the conversation. “Where’d you get to?”

“Ah…” El drew out the syllable. There was a pause and then she laughed, sounding only a little guilty. “Alaric! Do you need me?”

His lack of response said she had switched to a private comm link. After a few moments, she turned to Dee.

“Looks like that’s our cue,” she said.

“Before you go, El,” Iris interrupted. “My files, please.”

Dee and Scout said nothing while the other pair faced one another, their scanning nets of light passing over one another.

“Thanks!” Iris drew away and gave a small twist of excitement.

“Thank you,” El mused. “Those geological maps of the Crucible arenas were quite helpful.” She turned to Dee. “Let’s go. Say bye to the sort of nice Ghosts.”

“I’m not an infant,” Dee said, mildly irritated. “Please stop using that tone.” He looked to the other two. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” Glancing at Scout, he added, “Mostly.”

Scout surprised him with a laugh. “So you do have a bit of backbone.”

“Just a little.” Dee turned to El. “Shall we?”

“Let’s.” She turned and led the way.

“You did well,” El said as they arrived to their Guardians’ hideaway. “For your first time.”

“Yes, well…” Dee tried to think of something to say, but the door slid open with a hydraulic hiss.

A tall male emerged, dressed in the same shade of yellow and black as El. His hood was back, pooling at his shoulders and with his helm tucked beneath an arm. He fixed a slow, lazy smile on his Ghost when he saw her.

“Hey gorgeous,” he greeted, turning up his free palm.

“Fancy meeting you here, handsome,” she replied, moving to hover above his gloved hand. “Where to?”

“We’re all set for the Reef; if we leave now, we’ll have plenty of time before the first Trials match to check out the competition.”

“Sounds like a plan.” El glanced back. “See you around, Dee.” And then she and her Guardian were gone.

Dee went into the room, following the trail of abandoned, mismatched armor. It led to the decently sized bed at the back of the small dorm. His Guardian was asleep, the sheet draped over his sprawling form. In spite of himself, Dee let out a sigh of relief that the man was not only okay, but looking more relaxed than Dee had seen him since his first resurrection.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he were ready for this, to have a Guardian of his own. Scanning the man and logging his even, strong vitals, Dee thought of El’s confession; that at some point she had been an overly concerned Ghost. Then, he considered the easy way she had interacted with her Guardian.

It would come to them as well, Dee told himself, moving away from his Guardian. With time.

And they had all the time in the world.

-fin-

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone was wondering, I here are the Ghosts’ shells mentioned. It's kind of hard describing them without overusing words. :/
> 
> Daemon – Generalist Shell  
> Shelly “El” – Exile Shell  
> Iris – Crimson Shell  
> Scout – Intrusion Shell


End file.
